


My Father's House (No More)

by Jayne L (JayneL)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayneL/pseuds/Jayne%20L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is drawn to churches, still, as he has always been. Maybe he should take comfort in this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Father's House (No More)

_"And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God."_ \--Genesis 28: 20-21

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The church is large and beautiful, furnished with dark wood and gleaming organ pipes and intricate, richly-coloured stained-glass windows. This evening, it hosts choir practise: men and women are arrayed together on the steps between nave and altar, black folders stuffed with sheet music splayed open in their hands. They start and stop their carols and hymns, fragment them, repeat the measures that need work. They are satisfied with _o come, o come_ ; instead, they _go, tell_. Their arrangement of _there shall a star_ melts without pause into _how brightly shines._

Castiel has been listening to them for an hour. He sits silently in the second-last pew, his back stiff, his hands gripping his thighs. He is battling nausea. He doesn't know why he thought being in a church might help.

He's drawn to churches, still, as he has always been. Maybe he should take comfort in this: something about him hasn't changed. Despite everything, something persists.

It's a Tuesday evening, dark and blustery outside. The men and women in the choir must have had full days already, must have spent many hours at work or caring for their children or shopping for groceries, for the holidays. They must be tired or hungry or preoccupied with thoughts of other responsibilities, as Castiel remembers he tended to be at this time of day when he was living as Clarence or Steve. But despite their worldly distractions, all of them have chosen to be here, united in purpose and faith, in spirit and song.

The choir director--a very tall, thin man with a thick, greying beard and an air of vague dishevelment--lopes back into place from where he had moved to address the altos. The choir's attention hones on him as he pauses. He raises his arms. There is a collective indrawn breath.

Castiel holds himself rigid against the churning, screaming pitch of his cannibalised grace, sickening inside him.

* * *

Kevin's body is laid out neatly on his bed. Care was obviously taken in the placement of his limbs, which are now locked in rigor. The charred holes of his eye sockets stare hollowly up at the ceiling.

Dean's eyes are wide and red and anxious, the skin around them swollen. Castiel feels the weight of his gaze and his hope, and thinks distractedly about how he hadn't known Kevin was dead the moment it happened. He should have known. He should have felt the death of a prophet. He should have felt the new one being called.

He wonders if maybe he had, but hadn't noticed amid the din.

"You gotta save him, Cas." Dean has been saying this, and variations of this, from the moment Castiel arrived at the bunker. "You gotta bring him back. C'mon, man. Lay on your hands."

Castiel curls his hands into fists at his sides. "I'm sorry, Dean. I can't."

"What? No. Come on." When Castiel remains still, Dean rears back as if struck. "Why not? Why the _fuck_ not? Zeke--whoever the hell he is--he could do it! He did it for Sam, for Charlie, hell, he did it for--" Castiel looks up, and watches Dean bleed out love and shame and agony. "Why not?" he asks again, finally, when the fever of his desperation has drained and left him stark and gaunt. He sounds very small. "Why can't you?"

"Because my grace is--" Conscripted. Forced and reeling, unfamiliar and unwilling. They're anthropomorphic descriptions, and inaccurate, but Castiel is otherwise at a loss to explain how wrong it feels. Not just the foreign grace inside him, but his own awareness of it, his own understanding of what it is he's done. "--fragile. The grace within me now is fragile, Dean. Besides," he redirects, "it's been hours. Kevin's soul is beyond my reach. If it were possible for me to bring him back, I would." A lurching surge of grace numbs his fingertips and sears alien fractals through the shredded remnants of his wings. He reconsiders, because _it's a punishment, resurrection, worse every time._ "I can't."

Dean's desolate stare drifts to Kevin's body. He places his shaking hand on the crown of Kevin's head, resting it lightly on his hair; then, with a harsh breath, he snatches his hand away and leaves the room.

When he's gone, Castiel steps in close and raises his own hand, places it carefully where Dean's had been. He focuses on the shell of Kevin's flesh, and casts out for the sense of Kevin's soul. He imposes himself inexorably on his new, hard-won grace.

His will batters itself against the shield that encompasses Heaven. His fingers remain numb.

* * *

It's Gadreel who has taken Sam. Castiel is appalled anew by how thorough Metatron was in emptying Heaven. How indiscriminate, to set imprisoned criminals free to fall with the rest.

He helps Dean capture Gadreel, and re-secures the bunker with fresh wards against detection, rescue, and escape. When Dean can't be dissuaded from working with Crowley, Castiel wards the dungeon against miracles.

Gadreel watches him--and Dean and Crowley as they come and go, supplying themselves with books and arguments and tools of persuasion--from his manacled chair. He doesn't speak until Castiel begins to write the last ward. "You are Castiel."

Castiel's attention stays firmly on his work. His hand stays steady, painting in long, clean sweeps. "You met me in this form weeks ago, Gadreel. Although I couldn't recognise you in yours at the time."

"I knew you before then." There's a rusty slither of metal from the chair: Gadreel leaning forward, maybe, or testing the strength of his chains. Dean appears in the doorway, Crowley close to heel, and the noise behind Castiel stops. "I heard of you, brother. Even in captivity, I could still hear the song of the Host, the voices of our brothers and sisters. I heard the chaos you caused among them. And the silence." Castiel finishes the sigil. He reviews his work, focusing strictly on the wards for one moment more, before turning to meet Gadreel's mingled awe and contempt. "I was glad to be locked away. Safe from your zealotry and your wrath."

"Watch it, Shawshank," Dean growls. Castiel thinks he's mistaken his impassivity for incapacity.

Gadreel ignores the interruption. "When I met you here, on Earth, I was shocked to see you human. Not merely fallen, but _human_?" He shakes his head. Sam's face is a mask of dismay. "After everything I had heard, Castiel, I never expected to pity you."

"I said watch it." Dean's voice is sharper now. "He doesn't need your pity."

"He no longer has it," Gadreel snaps. He spares Dean a quelling glance that seems to catch Dean unprepared: he falters, and takes a beat too long to draw himself up and return the glare. Gadreel looks again to Castiel, hard-eyed. "I see what you have done to yourself, Castiel. To that grace inside you. It is unforgiveable. Grotesque, and depraved--"

"And deceiving your way into your preferred vessel is somehow more acceptable." That's confirmation, then--unfortunately--that other angels can identify his grace as having been stolen and usurped. But that isn't why they're here. Gadreel is attempting a distraction, and it has gone on long enough. Conscious of the speculative look Crowley is giving him--and the fresh worry and anger brewing in Dean--Castiel takes from his pocket a slip of paper with Kevin's name on it, found with Kevin's body and written in the hand of the Scribe of God. Advancing slowly, he holds the paper up for Gadreel to see. His brother's gaze fixes on it and shutters with wary recognition. "Did Metatron promise you restoration? The glorious reformation of Heaven into a shining kingdom of order and mercy and peace? Did he promise you honour?" Castiel crumples the paper. Gadreel flinches. "He promised you lies. There is no high ground anymore, Gadreel. We are all abominations now."

Gadreel stares, shaken.

Castiel turns and strides to the door. He says as he leaves, "Let him scream."

* * *

Dean follows him. Of course he does. Catching up at the steps into the war room, he stops Castiel with a touch to his arm, barely there before it's gone again. "What the hell was he talking about back there? 'What you've done to yourself'? 'That grace'?" He's equal parts concern and accusation, planting his feet and demanding answers he plainly knows he won't like. "You said you got _your_ grace back."

Castiel would have preferred to have this conversation at another time. A time when his problems might selfishly enjoy Dean's full attention, or at least a majority of it, like when Dean helped him bandage his injured hand and care for Nora's daughter after Ephraim's attack. A time when half or more of Dean's attention wasn't still in the dungeon with Crowley and Gadreel and Sam. He keeps his explanation succinct. "My grace was absorbed into Metatron's spell. Until we find a way to break that spell, it's unavailable. I was forced to improvise."

"Improvise? You, what, you tracked down some grace that was lying around somewhere? Like Anna's tree?"

Castiel is amazed by Dean's optimism. He could almost laugh. "I had been captured. I was about to be killed. My options were limited."

"So you...took it?" Dean's realisation is hesitant--resistant, maybe--but certain. "Just took it from some bastard?" Castiel says nothing. "Wow. Do unto others the way you've been done to, huh, Cas?"

"Not exactly. I was merciful. I killed the angel whose grace I took." Dean startles, his lips parting, his eyes stretching wide and round. Castiel doesn't want to entertain his shock, much less the reasons for it. He brushes past the topic. "My powers are restored as much as they can be with Heaven locked down. I'm capable again, Dean. I can be of use in this war." He's no longer relegated to finding purpose in selling lottery tickets and scraping burnt cheese from the nacho machine at the Gas-n-Sip. He wishes Dean hadn't been proud of him for embracing that purpose, that life, Steve's life. But Castiel had lied too well, and Dean had been proud, and now, facing the truth, Dean doesn't understand. Castiel has grace again, he has a place and a stake in the affairs of the Host. He wishes that, for once, Dean would _understand_. "I did what was necessary."

"Yeah? The dick that _stole Sam_ thinks what you did is 'unforgiveable and depraved', and I gotta be honest, it kinda sounds like angelic long pig to me. But you say it's necessary, so, okay." Dean scrubs a hand over his mouth, which is twisting helplessly into a rictus of a smile. "Shit, Cas," he marvels, humourless and verging on hysterical. "Fuck. You musta really hated being human."

He does understand, then. Castiel is relieved.

* * *

It's late evening, and the church is full and glowing. Castiel stands at the back, just ahead of the tall, carved screens dividing narthex from nave. In the week since his last visit, there has been a great deal of effort put into dressing the church for the holiday: the wooden screens, window trim, and pews have all been polished to an inky shine, and the ledges beneath the windows are strung with garlands of pine and cedar. Vibrant poinsettias spill from baskets in the corners. A tall, shapely fir stands to one side, lit with tiny candles and hung with bright red and gold ornaments. The scents of greenery and snow are fresh counterpoints to the congregation's mingled perfumes and damp woollen coats.

At the front of the church, the choir's dishevelled conductor leads them now wearing a neat suit and tie, his body swaying or stilling in eloquent direction behind the movements of his hands. The choir members, who had attended their practise in a rainbow of flannels and fleeces and jeans, are uniform for their performance in plain black robes. They sing their songs whole now; uninterrupted, their voices funnel and flow and build and soar to the rafters. The music is worship, beautiful and strong. The congregation shares in it, amplifies it, and it rings, and it echoes.

It is faith, and it is alive. The church breathes with it.

When Castiel was human, homeless and fugitive, he visited churches primarily for the food or shelter they offered as functions of their mission. The services he attended and sermons he received were often well-meaning, but inevitably ignorant, and ultimately far less useful than the hot meal or warm bed they bought him. Increasingly, churches became refuge for Castiel's weary body alone; rarely, if ever, for his waning spirit.

In the back row of pews, a dark-skinned little girl in a jewel-blue dress catches his eye: she is draped drowsily across her father's chest, her chin tucked over his shoulder, her sleepy attention caught on Castiel. When she realises he's looking at her, she turns her face to hide against her father's neck, burrowing close; soothingly, the man tips his head against hers and rubs her back, rocks her gently to the woven voices of the choir singing _snow on snow on snow_. After a moment, the girl sighs and sinks into sleep, warm and safe and trusting in her father's arms.

Castiel leaves the church to its rejoicing. He may be an angel again, but this faith is not in him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Arcade Fire's ['Windowsill'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8aH3YJGhwU).


End file.
